"Up on the third floor, above the restaurant, they're doing some construction. It's a bunch of small rooms with showers [Laughs]. We're not supposed to know about it, but we all do. They're building a whore house up there."

--Waitress at a restaurant/lounge by the WTC site

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Hope everyone had a good weekend. I'm back from New Orleans. Had a good time and got to hear all the scoop about how horrible it is to work on Bourbon Street. A waitress working at my hotel told me about a time she got reprimanded while working on Bourbon.

It was pretty early in the morning and she was closing up at The Dungeon when she bent down to pick up a piece of paper. Some guy came up from behind and grabbed her in the biscuits. So she raised up and clocked him, and instead of supporting her, the management cut her back a shift.

I guess the customer is always right.

Anyways, here's Roger talking more about his restaurant. He's from Chicago and his place is a little south of NYU. He has a really interesting analogy about waiting tables. Never really thought about, but I guess he's right. Waiters are kinda' like share croppers.

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The owner also wants nicer looking people and he wants his bar to have a certain look and a certain feel, which you can't really blame him for that. But sometimes it gets a little frustrating when you get a really great bartender of a really great server and he lets them work for a day and then, "Well tell them not to come back."

Well, why? 'Cause he wasn't good lookin enough, or she was a little chubby? Sometimes it's that kind of thing, which I guess isn't too unusual because people want good looking people because it brings in customers. But at our bar, I don't think people come to check out the servers.

Maybe if you're working at a wilder bar or a dance club, you go there to see the hot women or the hot men. But at our palce, I don't think it makes that much of a difference. People are there to watch the game and listen to music and have some wings.

The best way to think about it is like renting out plots of land. The owner is giving you some tables. For him, you have to sell his food, push things and try to make him money. But as a reward, you're going to get cash at the end of the night.

So you get some tables and that's your section. Do whatever you've got to do,but sell the food and liquor and you'll get a cut. And that's how you think about it. You go in and put in your time and you leave with the money.

That would be my advice to anyone who's trying to do another job, some sort of art, is that it's really just about sticking it out and doing what you can and trying not to burn any bridges. 'Cause when it comes down to it, waiting tables is paying the bills. It is taking care of you and it's enabling you to have freedom to go to auditions in your time off.

12:54:52 PM     comment []